


you won't be alone, we're unstoppable

by eynn



Series: i can't go back and lose it all [6]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix It, Gen, Nobody Dies, Order 66, fun with jedi mindscapes and meditation ahead, i guess, i unfridged shmi because she is badass, obi wan and shaak ti are so excited for grandkids, plo koon wishes he has some but all his kids are ace or gay or too busy, what the jedi who got knocked out by their clones are doing, when you get sucked into a weird force skype call you have a therapy session, while the clones are plotting to overthrow the senate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eynn/pseuds/eynn
Summary: He didn’t know it was even possible to fall asleep while already asleep and in his mindscape with a bunch of uninvited guests, but Anakin falls asleep on the floor, covered by Luminara’s robe, while above them the circle of Jedi get a battle plan ready for when they wake.He feels surprisingly lighter now that he isn’t carrying so many secrets.Having them all openly express affection and concern for him has helped a lot as well.For the first time since he can remember, Anakin Skywalker doesn’t feel alone.
Relationships: CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: i can't go back and lose it all [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658362
Comments: 40
Kudos: 1276





	you won't be alone, we're unstoppable

**Author's Note:**

> i got the whole idea for the jedi mental conference from a comment that fai_gensou made on 'i'll guide you through the lightning, stay close by my side' and it was a blast to write. thanks for the idea, dude!

Anakin Skywalker is annoyed.

Sure, maybe he’d been skipping some sleep lately, and a few meals, but he’d been doing much better! He likes feeling hopeful and energetic, and was kind of embarrassed that it’d taken so long for him to realize that he always felt better when he trusted his men to keep watch and take control if something happened, that he could let himself take some down time and be a better General as a result.

The point was, there was absolutely no reason for Rex to have ambushed him in the corridors with one of Kix’s special Jedi knockouts, and no reason for him to have to nap now.

Anakin grumbles a bit more to himself and then sinks into a peaceful state of half-dream, half meditation.

He wanders around his mindscape for a while, poking things as he passes. It looks a lot like a junkyard, overgrown with trailing vines and moss with flowers and pools of water. It is, in fact, an amalgamation of the many junkyards he had seen in his life, full of interesting bits of tech to fiddle with and green things to relax in while he does so.

He turns a corner around a wrecked shuttle and runs face-first into Obi-Wan.

“Obi-Wan!” he says, surprised to meet him here. They’d only linked their mindscapes a few times, and always deliberately.

“Anakin!” says Obi-Wan. “Did you get knocked out by your men too?”

Anakin rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, I guess Rex thought I wasn’t sleeping enough? But I have been!” he protests.

“Cody got me while I was meditating,” Obi-Wan sighs. “He gets so tetchy about ‘meditation isn’t proper sleep, General’. Have I ever passed out from exhaustion in front of him?”

Anakin is tactfully silent. He has seen his mentor do that very thing more times than he can remember.

~

Obi-Wan’s mindscape is a library. They go there to sit in the comfortable chairs and think. Even if it’s only in their heads, there’s no point in not being comfortable.

Even if he’d die from embarrassment by now if he admitted it, Anakin likes being in Obi-Wan’s mindscape. It feels warm and serene and comforting, like a hug.

He likes Obi-Wan hugs.

Anakin curls up sideways in a poofy chair, hanging his head over the side and watching as his mentor sinks into his own chair, stretching out like a contented loth-cat and closing his eyes. The walls of the library pulse gently with power now that both of them are there, strong and cradling.

He has shields around his junkyard paradise, of course, but they aren’t as visible as the stone walls of the library, and every time he was allowed in he loved being able to just huddle down behind them and let everything pass him by.

Being Force-sensitive was a lot like having constant sensory overload.

“Sometimes I wonder what the clones really think of us,” Obi-Wan says. “They follow us everywhere, and it seems like there’s always a few that are just watching us in case we need help with something.”

Anakin shrugs. “They’re my brothers,” he says. It’s as simple as that for him.

Though he’s pretty sure brothers don’t pause in the middle of a battle to stare at the lines (and the ass, if he’s being totally honest) of one of the others as he rushes the enemy? Or are supposed to want to run their fingers through his hair or want to make him blush?

Ugh. He’s already married! He needs to have a serious talk with Padmé. Not that he’d ever leave her or betray her, but . . .

At least it’s only one of his men he keeps falling over feelings for?

“More like a bunch of over-anxious mother hens,” Obi-Wan is grumbling.

“If we weren’t there, they’d be a lot more vulnerable to the droids, not to mention Dooku and Grievous.”

“Sometimes I could swear they’re decanted looking around for a Jedi to nag.”

“Hey, where has Dooku been, anyway? I haven’t heard anything about him or from him for weeks now.”

“Do they train it into them or is it some kind of horrible homing instinct?”

“Usually he pops up and does something dramatic by now after being quiet for so long. All the droids I’ve fought recently were under Grievous’ command, too.”

“Maybe I should send a message to Master Ti and ask her what they actually teach the clones on Kamino. She only oversees the military training part of it. They could be teaching them anything.”

“Or Ventress. I haven’t seen a sign of her for ages now. I wonder if she’s dead?”

“She’s been pushing for more oversight in the actual cloning process. So have Mace and Yoda, actually. I wonder if I could help them with that? It’s not right that people who don’t care about them have so much say in giving them life.”

“I heard a rumor going around that something went down on Dathomir, because someone was trying to get revenge on Dooku for something. Maybe he’s there?”

“When you think about it, really, it’s obscene, the way that the Kaminoans just keep creating people and sending them off to die.”

“I wonder if Ahsoka is with him? Maybe I should go to Dathomir.”

“Oh, Anakin.” Obi-Wan reaches across the space, which obligingly shrinks to let him, and pats his padawan’s hand. “I’m so sorry about Ahsoka. I know you did everything you could to help her.”

Anakin’s mouth twists up into a pained little smile. “I tried. I blame the Senate. Sending her out over and over on her own like that, into a bloodbath, when she’s barely fifteen? It’s insane.”

“I know.”

“Some days I can barely stay sane and I have all my men, and you.”

“You’re doing really well, Anakin. I’m so proud of you.”

Anakin holds on to Obi-Wan’s hand. “Thanks, Master.”

“Where did you say you think Ahsoka might be? We could take the long way to the next fight and go look for her.”

“I was thinking Dathomir?”

“Dathomir? Why would she go there?”

“She might want to join Dooku. I mean, she was saying some stuff that really reminded me of him when she left.”

“Dooku is on Dathomir?”

Anakin rolls his eyes. “He might be. Weren’t you listening? I heard a rumor that something happened there to do with him.”

“He hasn’t been around lately, has he?” Obi-Wan says with an air of surprise.

“No, he hasn’t,” Anakin says tolerantly.

There’s a knock on the library door.

“Do I intrude?”

~

They watch as General Koon finds a comfortable chair and slumps into it.

“Your men knock you out too?” Anakin asks. He’s becoming more comfortable with his fellow Jedi these days, especially the ones who serve on the front lines like him. Even the Temple-bound ones seem to have had something loosen the stick that was up their backsides.

“Yes.” Plo Koon sighs. “Wolffe worries so.”

“I know the feeling,” Obi-Wan mutters.

“May I ask, whose mindscape is this?”

“Mine.”

“Both this library and the . . . outside area?”

“The junkyard?” Anakin says cheerfully. “That’s mine.”

Obi-Wan is frowning. “How did you get in here?” he asks. “Not that I’m not glad to have a chat, but this shouldn’t be happening. Especially if you came through Anakin’s mindscape to get into mine.”

“After my men decided I needed a nap, I was in deep meditation,” Plo explains. “Then I noticed a small door in the wall of my mindscape. I investigated it and found the, ah, junkyard. Then I heard your voices coming from a door in a wall on one side of it, and here I am.”

“That’s strange,” Anakin says. “I mean, it’s not that I mind having you here, but I didn’t even feel anything come through my shields.”

“That’s concerning,” says Obi-Wan.

“I have heard of some kinds of Force bonds that allow easy passage in and out of each other’s minds, but I don’t think we know each other well enough to have one,” says Plo.

They look at each other bemusedly. A stray thought crosses Anakin’s mind -- _could I always see his eyes under his mask? I never knew they were amber_ – but he ignores it in favor of wondering about how they are all in each other’s heads.

There’s another knock at the door.

“Not it,” says Anakin, a heartbeat before Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan groans.

~

This time it’s General Secura. She sinks into a chair with a relieved groan and immediately starts complaining about overprotective clones, overanxious husbands, and the lack of availability of pregnancy tests on the front lines of a battle mostly staffed by males.

Anakin is only listening with half an ear, wondering how in the kriffing hells all these Jedi are just waltzing through his mindscape and into Obi-Wan’s, and why it’s happening now. He’s been knocked out by Rex with the same exact shot an embarrassing amount of times, and so have most of the Generals. Some of them, surely, have been in this odd unconscious state it induces at the same time before, so why are they all meeting up now? And why in his head, of all the members of the Order that have brainspace available?

He comes back to himself upon hearing Obi-Wan and Plo start a maybe-joking maybe-serious argument over who should be Aayla’s possible child’s favorite uncle.

“Shouldn’t it be Quinlan?” he says, before his brain really processes what they’re arguing about.

“He’d be the grandfather, of course,” she snaps at him before going back to yelling at the other two that of course they’ll be uncles, but she doesn’t see why they have to compete about it.

“Oh yeah,” he says stupidly, because his brain is whirling.

Aayla is pregnant? Jedi General Aayla is pregnant? Has a husband? When did she get married? Why did she get married? How? And Obi-Wan and Plo are fine with it? They’re arguing about uncle rights instead of censuring her for getting attached to people?

“Wait, you’re pregnant?” he says, a lot louder than he intended to.

They all give him identical looks of confusion.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think I might be,” she says, with exaggerated patience. “That’s what I’ve been saying for the last ten minutes, Anakin.”

“Oh. Well, uh, congratulations if you are, I guess? I mean. Shit. That’s great, Aayla.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you get in here through my mindscape? The junkyard,” he clarifies.

She nods. “Bly got me with a shot, and I found a strange archway in my own mindscape, and when I followed it –”

“You heard us talking,” Plo cuts in. “The same thing happened to me. This is Obi-Wan’s mindscape, but we both entered it through Anakin’s.”

“Obi-Wan has comfy chairs,” Anakin says. “I just have moss. When did you get married?”

She beams at him. “It was a while ago. Technically it was for a mission, but we got a little carried away. And now –” she shrugs. “Not the best timing, but I’m happy anyways.”

“Are you still out in the front lines?” he asks. “That’s not safe. You should get back to the Temple –”

“I’m maybe-pregnant, not sick,” she snaps again. Her eyes flare amber-bright.

“No, I was going to say, you should go back to the Temple to check and see if you really are, and then to get some decent pre-natal care. There’s some really good doctors on Coruscant, and you don’t want to put your kid at risk just because those idiot Senators think they need more people killing each other out here.”

They all blink at him.

“How do you know that?” she asks.

“Have you looked at the Senate’s orders lately?”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. “How do you know about maternal medicine on Coruscant, Anakin?”

Oh. _Fuck_. “I – uh.” He takes a deep breath, rubs the back of his neck. “Padmé is about eight months pregnant right now.”

“Senator Amidala? Brilliant!” says Aayla.

Plo only smiles. Anakin has a sudden, horrible feeling that he already knew.

“We’re married,” he says. Better to get it all over with.

Anakin is not prepared for Obi-Wan to lunge across the space between their chairs and pull him into a crushing hug.

~

General Unduli and Knight Offee show up together soon after that. Aayla joyfully tells them that Senator Amidala is pregnant and married to Anakin almost before they are seated, and they just nod and congratulate Anakin.

“We sent the wedding presents to her apartment,” Luminara continues. “We thought it would be safer.”

“Wedding . . . presents?” Anakin says faintly.

“Of course!” Barriss says, looking outraged. “We might not have known about your marriage right away, but as soon as we learned, of course we got you wedding gifts. What else would we have done?”

Visions of leaving the Temple in disgrace, losing everyone he’s ever known and cared for (except Padmé), losing his lightsaber, his job, his men, what little influence he has, what little power he has to help people, flit through Anakin’s mind.

Obi-Wan’s arm is still around his shoulders, and it tightens as his Master must sense the disquiet and fear that runs through him.

Barriss leans forward, as does Plo, and they both reach out to him, Plo to gently hold one of his hands, Barriss to tap his knee. Luminara and Aayla are sitting further away, but he feels their Force presences swirl gently around him, supportive and comforting.

“Why do you think you would be forced out of the Order just for getting married?” Obi-Wan asks. He’s running his fingers through Anakin’s hair in a way he hasn’t done since Anakin was small.

“Isn’t – Doesn’t –” he stammers.

They look at him blankly. He can feel their confusion.

“Jedi can’t get attached, Jedi can’t love,” he finally manages to say.

Luminara frowns. Aayla and Plo puff up like angry cats. Barriss stares at him with blank surprise on her face. Obi-Wan’s arm tightens around his shoulder, and he puts a soft kiss on the top of his head. “Oh, Anakin, who ever told you that? That’s not true at all.”

“I – didn’t you? Everyone was always scolding me for attachment, whenever I talked about Mom, whenever I got upset about anything,” his voice breaks. “Weren’t you happy when she died? Because I wasn’t going to think about her anymore?”

There’s a soft gasp from Barriss, and a louder one from Aayla. Plo is frowning now.

“What do you mean, when Master Shmi died? She’s not dead.”

Anakin freezes.

“She’s a crechemaster, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says softly. “You know that. We went back for her a few months after you came to the Temple, remember? She’s been working in the creche ever since.”

Barriss is nodding. “She’s the best,” she says, simply. “We all love her. You don’t know how much we all envy – envied – Ahsoka . . . for getting to be your padawan, because you are her son – ” She blinks hard. “I miss her a lot,” she admits.

“As do I,” Plo rumbles, and leans over to hug Barriss. “Do not lose hope. Little Soka has a good heart. She may yet find her way back to us, if we do not give up on her.”

“Jedi can love, Anakin,” Aayla says. “We merely are careful not to let that love turn into obsession. It’s dangerous for us, with our powers. We are careful with who and how much we love until we understand self-control. But we do love. Our entire reason for existence is based on love. We try to make peace because we love all forms of life. If anyone ever scolded you for loving, they were no true Jedi.”

“The Order went through some hard times with Jedi who became obsessed in the last few years, so we became a little hypersensitive about emotional displays, but no one has ever believed that we cannot love,” says Obi-Wan. “Where did you hear that?”

Anakin exhales. His eyes are stinging. His mother is alive? His mother is a crechemaster? “I don’t know,” he says. He tries to remember and a sharp pain hits him, right in the center of his skull. “I don’t – I saw her die! I was there. I –” he falters, remembering the sand and the blood and the sound of his lightsaber cutting them down.

“She’s not dead, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, steady and strong. “We pass her in the Temple all the time. You came with me when we went with Mace to buy out her contract and hire her. You insisted on making her a cake when we got back to the Temple. It had orange frosting and you got flour all over our quarters.”

Anakin tries to remember. He shakes his head, the coppery tang of blood and the heat of fire filling his mind. “She was captured by Tusken raiders,” he whispers. “I was too late.”

He doesn’t see Obi-Wan and Luminara exchanging bemused glances over his head.

“Your mother Shmi Skywalker is not dead, Anakin,” Plo says, deep and gentle. “I swear it upon my life. She is safe in the Temple, where she has been since you were ten years old.”

Anakin remembers his mother in the creche for a second, seeing her crocheting a blanket with three of the children sleeping beside her, and smiling at him as he comes to join her, and then the memory is overlaid with blood and sand again and the pain in his head is more intense than ever.

The next thing he knows, he’s on the floor, his head is Barriss’ lap, and Plo and Aayla are leaning over him. Obi-Wan and Luminara are hovering just behind them.

“I think he has some kind of mental leech,” Aayla is saying. “It’s been a while since I studied mental Force attacks, but these seem to be classic symptoms.”

Plo is nodding.

There is another knock at the door.

~

General Ti comes in and brings a sense of urgency to their gathering. She folds herself gracefully down onto the floor to join them and looks at Anakin with such open concern that he starts crying again.

He’s making a mess of Barriss’ robes, but she doesn’t seem to care.

“My sons on Kamino sedated me,” Shaak Ti says. “What’s going on?”

“So did ours,” says Plo. “We don’t know.”

“What is wrong with Anakin?”

Plo’s face darkens with anger. “He has a mental leech, placed on him by someone who wants him to believe that love is forbidden to the Jedi and that his mother is dead.”

Shaak Ti stares.

Anakin knows he looks stupid, curled up in a wailing ball on the floor, half on Barriss’ lap and half in Obi-Wan’s, but his head hurts and he can barely see straight let alone think straight. At least nobody is scolding him.

“We need to call a Council meeting immediately once we wake up,” Aayla says, and Luminara nods.

“Someone is trying to manipulate us, that much is clear,” she agrees. “We must meet and discuss everything openly, to make sure that we are all on the same page.”

“In the interests of openness, Anakin’s married to Senator Amidala and they’re having a baby!” Barriss says brightly after a few moments of silence.

Shaak Ti looks ecstatic. “Congratulations, Knight Amidala!” she says, and pets his hair. “I’m so happy that you will finally have a little one of your own.”

Anakin is too confused to answer.

“Grandkids,” says Luminara, and smirks at Obi-Wan. “You’re getting old.”

“I might be pregnant too,” Aayla says. “Not to take over, but I have to be careful next time we get in a fight. Bly will kill me if I’m not.”

Anakin thinks he actually sees tears in Shaak Ti’s eyes. She reaches out and pulls Aayla into a hug. “I get grandkids too!” she chirps. “Does Quinlan know yet? He’s going to be so happy, after he gets done panicking.”

Plo just sighs. “I wish I had some,” he mumbles.

“All right,” says Obi-Wan, glaring at Luminara. “Priorities, people! We need to get in contact with the Council as soon as we can.”

“On a secure line, preferably a secret one,” Aayla adds. “Someone close to Anakin had to have placed that Force leech. It could be someone within the Temple.”

Luminara’s eyes burn gold. It’s pretty, Anakin thinks fuzzily.

“They will pay,” she growls. “First my padawan, now Anakin? I will not stand for this.”

He doesn’t know what she means. Was Barriss attacked by someone too?

“We must protect Senator Amidala as well, then,” Plo adds. “I will send a protection detail to bring her into the Temple right away.”

“Good idea,” says Obi-Wan. “Though Padmé can be stubborn. I think it would be best if I commed to tell her to go.”

“I can –” Anakin begins.

“You are going straight back into unconsciousness until we can get you to the Temple and that leech off of you,” Aayla says bossily. “I may not be a medic, but I’m not a self-flagellating idiot, either.”

Anakin looks around and feels vaguely betrayed that everyone is nodding. “How’re you going to do that when we’re not even in the same star system?”

“I’ll comm Rex,” Obi-Wan says with finality.

“Shit.”

“We’ll take care of Padmé. Don’t worry about her, Anakin. She’ll be fine.”

He didn’t know it was even possible to fall asleep while already asleep and in his mindscape with a bunch of uninvited guests, but Anakin falls asleep on the floor, covered by Luminara’s robe, while above them the circle of Jedi get a battle plan ready for when they wake.

He feels surprisingly lighter now that he isn’t carrying so many secrets.

Having them all openly express affection and concern for him has helped a lot as well.

For the first time since he can remember, Anakin Skywalker doesn’t feel alone.


End file.
